The Near-Death of a Child

In March of 1990, while vacationing in Florida, our family was involved in a serious car accident: a head-on collision with a drunk driver. Rose Marie, our five year old daughter, and I only sustained minor injuries, but my husband and our two and a half year old daughter Kayla were gravely hurt. Along with fractures to her right leg and collar bone, as well as other injuries, Kayla’s left hip was smashed, requiring several weeks in traction and more weeks in a bodycast.

The earliest prognosis was that Kayla’s left leg would likely not heal properly since the fracture occurred across the growth plate. The fractures did heal, but one leg was markedly shorter than the other. We were then told she would likely have a permanent limp. But six months after the accident, the limp was no longer apparent. And a little less than a year later both legs had grown to be the same length. One is slightly longer from hip to knee and the other is longer from knee to ankle, but she has no physical disabilities whatsoever. In fact, she is an excellent dancer, gymnast, and sprint and relay runner for her School’s track and field team.

Aside from my daughter’s remarkable recovery, there is another aspect of the accident I would like to share — Kayla’s near-death experience.

After the impact, my husband was pinned inside the wreckage and writhing in pain beside me. As I turned and looked into the back of the car, I could see Rose Marie was not seriously hurt. But, to my horror, Kayla was no where to be seen. Her side of the car had been obliterated by the crash. I thought at first that she might be tangled within the wreckage, but seconds later discovered she had been thrown out of the seat and into the hatchback of the car.

A bystander hurried to our aid, wrapped Rose Marie in a jacket, and carried her to a bench some yards from the car so that I could attend to Kayla. Kayla’s eyes were closed, her face was an ashen white, and her body was still and motionless. I was sure she had died. To spare my husband from this knowledge, I gathered Kayla’s limp body in my arms, lifted her out of the car, and stepped a short distance away. The moments that followed are forever imprinted on my memory.

As I stood holding Kayla, all the sights, sounds and commotion around me seemed to fade away. I was only aware of my child and a bright, white light that emanated from her body, surrounding us both. Then Kayla’s eyelids began to flutter and she opened her eyes and looked into mine. Her gaze was intent and fixed. I felt she was looking at me and also through me. And there occurred between us what I can only describe as an outpouring of love. Within this love, I felt perfectly at peace. I knew Kayla was about to die, but I was not afraid to let her go. A second or two later, she closed her eyes and was gone.

When Kayla “died,” my peace was instantly and violently shattered. The reality of living without her seemed unbearable. And it felt as though my soul had torn from my body and entered into some other dimension, a dark and empty void, in search of my child. But Kayla was not there. And the grief I felt was so agonizing, all I could do was scream.

It was a silent scream, one that could only be heard inside my mind, but out of this pain came a thought, a solution: I began calling out to God from within the void, asking God to bring Kayla back, and to bring her back whole. Suddenly, the sounds — my husband’s moans, the running and shouting of the people — were part of my awareness again. And I began calling out my daughter’s name, hoping it would somehow help to revive her. “Kayla! Kayla!” I shouted loudly and firmly, over and over again. A woman came and put her hand on my shoulder, as if to tell me to stop, that my daughter was dead. I noticed then that there were many people around us. Some were crying. But I could not stop, and continued calling Kayla’s name.

Although it seemed like an eternity, likely only a minute or two passed before Kayla’s body suddenly jolted. It was as though she had been shocked by electricity or dropped from a great height, and all her limbs jerked. The force was so strong, I almost dropped her. And then, in an instant, all the color rushed back into her face, her eyes popped open, and she screamed, “I NEED A BAND-AID!” Overwhelmed with relief and with tears still streaming down my face, I began to laugh, as did the other people who were there.

The first few months after the accident were tremendously stressful. The reality of death seemed a constant presence. I felt traumatized. Why did God put my family through this? Had we not suffered enough? I felt guilty. Why was my child spared while others die in their mothers’ arms? I felt angry — very angry with God. But during the month before my husband and Kayla were well enough to be transported home by air ambulance, and during the year of recovery that followed, this rage seemed to give me the strength and energy I needed to get myself and my family through.

I was also plagued by nightmares in which my children were dying, slipping out of my grasp and falling into some bottomless abyss. I would awaken from these dreams in a cold sweat, shaken and in tears. The events surrounding the accident would replay themselves in my waking hours as well, often while driving. It was horrible and confusing. All I knew was that the world was not a safe place. At any given moment, God might come and try to snatch my loved ones from me. And there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

At first, I didn’t tell anyone, except my husband and my parents, that Kayla had come so close to dying. The experience and the feelings it aroused were just too painful for me to talk about with anyone else. But eventually I did share the experience with a few close friends, hoping they might be able to help me work through my anger and confusion. I needed some sort of validation that what happened to me was real, that I had not imagined the light and void, and that my daughter had survived an encounter with death. But as supportive as my friends had been throughout this time, this validation was not something they could give me.

The alienation I felt from not being able to find the kind of understanding I needed just compounded my confusion. I began to wonder if maybe my friends were right. Perhaps what I experienced was the result of shock. Perhaps Kayla’s condition was also shock and not a near-death experience as I had thought. Soon, I began to think that maybe God and all the mysterious experiences that had hinted at God’s existence over the course of my life might also be illusions, delusions really, the result of wishful thinking and an overdeveloped imagination.

By mid-May, just over three months after the accident, my husband was able to walk short distances with the aid of a walker. Kayla’s bodycast had recently been removed and she needed to be in a stroller since walking was still quite difficult for her. But they were both well enough for us to pay a visit to my father who was in hospital at the time, recovering from surgery for bladder and prostate cancer. During this visit, Kayla spied a get-well card on my father’s bedside table. On the front was a picture of Jesus sitting on a rock in a garden, holding a small child on his lap. She became very excited about it, tugging at my clothes and then at my mother’s, trying to get our attention.

“Who’s that?” Kayla asked, pointing to the picture.

“It’s Jesus,” I answered.

“Well, Jesus picked me up,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Where did he pick you up?” I asked.

“In Florida,” she said.

“Where in Florida, at Disneyland?” I asked, thinking she might have been referring to some flesh-and-blood person.

“No, silly mommy! At the car accident!” she laughed.

My family members and I just looked at one another in amazement, and for a moment we were speechless.

“So Jesus picked you up? Where did he take you?” I continued.

“He was taking me to heaven.”

“Did you go to heaven?”

“No,” Kayla said. “You were crying so much that Jesus gave me back to you.”

As I listened, chills ran up and down my spine, and tears filled my eyes. Kayla went on to tell us that Jesus had taken her by the hand and lifted her out of the car. As he carried her away, she could see the car wreck below. She wanted to go to heaven with him, she said.

When I asked what Jesus looked like, she said something even more astonishing. The Jesus who picked her up was a being of “blue light.” As she recounted this memory, the expression on her face became blissful. “He was beautiful!” she said.

Seeing the peace and joy on Kayla’s face as she shared her NDE with us, I was immediately released from many of the difficult feelings that had been tormenting me over those months. But it would be several more years before I could even begin to think about the many questions the experience inspired. These questions, although still unanswered, continue to hold my attention to this day.

Kayla sometimes liked to talk about the NDE during that first year, but stopped when she became embarrassed by the curiosity it aroused. These days, she doesn’t mention it very often, but she has agreed to let me share her story.

Categories

Quotes

"Unlike spiritual paths that arose from the ideas and inner experiences of lone, isolated human beings, the path presented by near-death experiences is emerging as a direct, grassroots revelation that millions of people from all over the world are receiving and sharing. If we explore this newly emerging path deeply enough, we discover that all religions, philosophies, and cultures are honored; that science and spirituality are celebrated; that both the human and spiritual side of our natures are cherished and embraced. In short, near-death experiences present us with a universal, all-inclusive, perfectly integrated spiritual path that revolves around three core truths: 1. We are all one; 2. Love is the essence of life; 3. We are here, in this world, to become perfect embodiments of the Divine." -- David Sunfellow

“Merely learning about the near-death experience has effects similar to those reported by NDErs.” -- Kenneth Ring,
from "Lessons from the Light"

“For me personally, I’m showing more love to others now than before I started my near-death-experience studies. My understanding of near-death experiences has made me a better doctor. I face life with more courage and confidence. I believe NDErs really do bring back a piece of the afterlife. When NDErs share their remarkable experiences, I believe a piece of the afterlife, in some mysterious way, becomes available to us all.” -- Jeffrey Long, "Evidence of the Afterlife"

"I'm not asking you to believe anything. I'm simply telling you what I believe. And I have no idea what the next life will be like. Whatever I saw was only from the doorway, so to speak. But it was enough to convince me totally of two things from that moment on: One, that our consciousness does not cease with physical death; that it becomes, in fact, keener and more aware than ever. And secondly, that how we spend our time on earth, the kind of relationships we build, is vastly more important than we can know." -- George G. Ritchie, M.D., summarizing his famous near-death experience which helped launch the near-death experience movement. From his book, "Return From Tomorrow"

"Many events in my life I experienced, but not from how I remembered it, but from the point of view... [of] how the people, animals, environment experienced it around me. I felt it as my own. The times I had made others happy, and sad, I felt it all as they did. It was very apparent that every single thought, word, and action affects everything around us and indeed the entire universe. Trees, plants, animals too. I have been a long-term vegetarian since about 18 years old and I know this was appreciated and is a good choice in life. Spiritually it seemed to show proof of respect for all life, and even seemed to balance some of the negative and wicked things I have done in my life. In the life review we judge ourselves; no one else does. The light/god did not. But with no ego left -- and no lies -- we can't hide from what we have done and feel remorse and shame, especially in the presence of this love and light. Some of the things in life we think of as important don't seem to be so important there. But some of the insignificant things from the material human perspective are very important spiritually." -- Justin U describing his near-death experience on the NDERF website

"I have never interviewed anyone who had a near-death experience who told me that they came back to make more money or to spend more time at their jobs away from their families... Instead, they become convinced that they need to be more loving and kind. They react to their experience by living life to its fullest. They believe their lives have a purpose, even if that purpose is obscure to them. Invariably it involves concepts such as love of family or service to others. They seem to know that the love they create while living will be reflected and radiated back to them when they die." -- Melvin Morse, M.D., from his book, Parting Visions

“I went into this tunnel, and I came into this room that was just beautiful. God held me, He called me by name, and He told me, ‘Mary Jo, you can’t stay.’ And I wanted to stay. I protested. I said, ‘I can’t stay? Why not?’ And I started talking about all the reasons; I was a good wife, I was a good mother, I did 24-hour care with cancer patients. And He said, ‘Let me ask you one thing -- have you ever loved another the way you’ve been loved here?’ And I said, ‘No, it’s impossible. I’m a human.’ And then He just held me and said, ‘You can do better.’ ” -- Mary Jo Rapini, describing her near-death experience

"I asked them if there were other worlds. And they said, yes, the universe is full of other worlds -- and there are other dimensions of other physical universes and those are full of other worlds." -- Howard Storm describing his NDE in "My Descent Into Death"

"The Light kept changing into different figures, like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, mandalas, archetypal images and signs. I asked the Light, “What is going on here? Please, Light, clarify yourself for me... The Light responded. The information transferred to me was that during your life after death experience your beliefs shape the kind of feedback you are getting before the Light. If you were a Buddhist or Catholic or Fundamentalist, you get a feedback loop of your own stuff. You have a chance to look at it and examine it, but most people do not. As the Light revealed itself to me, I became aware that what I was really seeing was our higher Self matrix." -- Mellen-Thomas Benedict

"God gave everything to us, everything is here -- this is where it's at. And what we are into now is God's exploration of God through us. People are so busy trying to become God that they ought to realize that we are already God and God is becoming us. That's what it is really about. When I realized this, I was finished with the void, and wanted to return to this creation..." -- Mellen-Thomas Benedict

“In one of my visits with the Light I was told that the near-death experience... would become more and more popular and it would have an affect on the entire world when a critical mass was hit and all these people have died and come back and are telling you that there is a lot more going on than we think." -- Mellen-Thomas Benedict